Jon Voight has taken many in the industry by surprise since President Trump named the 87-year-old a “special ambassador” to Hollywood in early 2025. Insiders didn’t quite know what to expect from the actor, an Academy Award winner for his empathetic performance as a Vietnam vet and paraplegic in Coming Home and diehard Trump fan who has previously framed the battle between left and right politics as a battle between good and evil.
And yet, almost as soon as he was anointed an official Hollywood liaison to the White House, the actor quickly started doing some serious diplomacy. Alongside his manager Steven Paul and associate Scott Karol (who leads Paul’s SP Media Group), Voight formed a coalition with unions, studio heads and other industry organizations to prescribe a salve to runaway production. Voight’s trio became an industry conduit to Trump, pitching the President on ways to stem the flow of production overseas as it was lured by increasingly attractive tax credits.
With this approach, Voight has played a key role in helping Hollywood get the closest it’s ever gotten to an idea that once seemed very pie in the sky: a federal film and television tax credit.
It was during a meeting with the actor in late August that Trump wrote his social media post in support of the policy, The Hollywood Reporter learned in an interview with Voight on Tuesday. That kicked off a frenzy of lobbying in support of the policy, which would financially incentivize productions to film in the U.S. and could be paired with individual states’ incentives (39 states have them, according to the MPA).
Voight offered some rare remarks about his role in an interview with THR after a press conference in support of the federal tax incentive on Tuesday. (During the call, stakeholders spoke to his role: “We all saw the evolution of the President’s direction on this,” Rep. Brian Jack (R-GA), who supports the legislation, said. “That is because of Jon Voight.”)
In the discussion, which he conducted with Paul and Karol, Voight discussed his approach to being a Hollywood liaison and unveiled new details of the meeting that convinced Trump to support the tax credit. All the while, he sat with a poster from 1979’s The Champ behind him — a movie he said Trump admires — as a different battle, the battle for the future of Hollywood production, continues.
I’d love to start by going back to the meeting that occurred just before President Trump posted his support for the federal film tax incentive on social media. What exactly happened in that meeting?
Steven Paul: Jon made an impassioned plea to the President of the United States, telling him first of all he’s been part of the entertainment business, so he understands it as well, if not better than most… and really explaining to him the state of the industry which is in dire straits. It’s embarrassing to say — you’re part of the industry, you know what’s going on. He made a long and thorough, impassioned plea, really heartfelt, to the President. That coupled with I think two other things, Jon’s emotion about that, Scott’s information about if we do a federal tax credit, how it will help the industry, American lives and bringing jobs back, that and me as a producer saying I’m being forced to go overseas, I’m ashamed of it. That I’m going to make a movie about [a former] President and I’m going to take it overseas? … I think it was a combination of all of that. And he says, how can I be helpful?
Jon Voight: First of all, we’re always amazed at the President and the way he takes one problem after another all day long and is dealing with such huge decisions every day. And leaves time to see us and is always in good cheer and always with positive energy and makes us comfortable. We’ve been there before and he enjoys our company, I think, too, but he’s so relaxed amidst all of this pressure he’s dealing with all of the time. And he takes the time to listen. Steven is really running the ship in our threesome. We went over what we needed to do very carefully. Because we know this President only has so much time. We’re thinking about him when we go in there and we want to make it as brief as we can, but go through all the things we needed to say. So we went through the list, and Steven got together a group of ideas and we focused on this to get down to the minimum words and the most effective words.
This is the second time we’ve done this, we come in and say, I’ve got it all typed up here to save us time and make it very succinct. Then he listens very carefully. He’s very playful, he’s a playful person. He calls Natalie [Harp] over, who by the way is the most wonderful person and she’s taken this slander, this terrible nonsense, in stride because she knows who she is, and she’s the most loyal to this President and so gifted, so gifted. She’s able to translate everything to action in a very quick way. She knows exactly what he needs and understands the tech. He says to her, “Let’s put Jon on video when he reads this.” I say, “Holy smokes, I felt like Nixon talking and being recorded all the time when he was in office. He didn’t do very well with that. Oh don’t record me on anything,” I’m saying to him. But I also know Steven’s going to interrupt and Scott’s going to interrupt, too, and [the camera] might be on a swivel, but anyway he’s playful like that. Because we had gone over these words very carefully, I was able to focus on all of the reasons and why we felt it was necessary to get this tax credit through Congress, really to save lives. He understood every word. He’s very, very smart. And at the end of that, after we played a little bit, he said, “Natalie, take this down,” and he did it right in front of us.
Paul: It was nice to see it right then because we were able to get a thought or two in while he wrote it up.
Voight: He created it right in front of us, this Truth Social message. And at the end of it, he said, “Let’s get this done.” He put it out there in a most positive way. The result was this event that we had today, it came from that energy. It was terrific. At the end of it, when he finished that message, we stood up, Steven stood up and applauded and I saluted. I said, “We did it, ghee whiz!” I’m moved even now as I remember it. We knew what had happened in that room. It was an amazing moment.
Did you get videotaped, after all?
Paul: They did, I think they videotaped him.
Scott Karol: On Natalie’s phone, yes.
Paul: I think because he likes Jon’s performances, he wanted it for his own viewing (laughs) Then he went on to say one of the greatest boxing movies ever is The Champ and screamed out to everybody, “Did you see Jon in The Champ?”
Voight: Considering all the things that were going on in that day, he had remarkable poise. He’s an amazing guy.
I read that you wrote a letter to the President to urge him to address the U.S. production crisis. What did you write in that letter?
Paul: It was a letter written up [that was mentioned earlier]. [Jon] said, “I don’t want you to miss anything, so I will read this to you.”
Voight: We’ve done this the last couple of times, we’ve taken the time to get our thoughts in the proper order.
Paul: I will share with you the last time we did this, he said. “Great letter, sign it to the greatest President of all time.” That’s what Jon did, he wrote, “To the greatest President of all time.”
Voight: I just want to say that I’ve gotten a lot of attention in this last hour or so that we had this press conference [but] the two guys you see on screen here, I mentioned in my little speech. I called Steven our “point man and leader.” And he is the leader, he is the guy, as you can tell with his energy, he’s the force. I’m getting a lot of attention that really belongs to Stevie. Anway, we were all of the same mind and we worked together very well.
Paul: Without this respect and love of you, none of this would be happening. I know he enjoys being with me and we have some fun.
Voight: The United States created this industry, and it was our cultural connection with the rest of the world. They fell in love with America because of everything that came out of Hollywood. And these great artists that came before me, they were magnificent. Can’t we understand that tremendous thing that it was? And now if they’re having a little difficulty, can’t we give them a little help? C’mon, what are we doing here? To bring it back to its former glory is a big deal, because that former glory is as bright and beautiful as it can be.
There are great people in Hollywood, just as there were in the golden age — great actors, great producers, all those people that do a film. And it was wonderful how almost everyone in the press conference mentioned the technical people and the carpenters and the drivers, all these people that make this thing work. We have an opening here, we have some sunlight, it’s going to happen. I can envision that this thing will explode once we get this thing through.
Do you mean the industry will have another golden age?
Voight: If we get on an even keel with the rest of the world’s tax benefits, if we get that break, there’s going to be an explosion of energy. It will be immediate. As someone mentioned, our business is a shovel-ready business. They will call people tomorrow, people will be getting ready immediately. [Then] it affects the communities they’re working in. Is it going to come back? Yes, I think it’s going to.
You’ve surprised a lot of people around town with the very collaborative way you’ve handled your remit as special ambassador to Hollywood. Can you explain your approach to the role?
Voight: Again, I’m going to have to point to the people on my right and left and Steven most especially. He is the guy who’s creating the plan to go forward. And all these people I met with because of Steven’s idea. “We’re going to do this and this, and Jon, get on the phone at 3 o’clock.”
Paul: That said, Jon wanted to meet with everybody. He said, “What about this director? What about this producer?” So we did, we met with every union, the heads of every studio, and before you knew it, we made this coalition. Everybody was saying the same thing, so it wasn’t actually hard to pull it together. It was a need for everybody and everybody was happy we approached everyone.
Voight: The most moving thing about today is there was no left and right, there was no separation.
Karol: But that’s because of you, Jon, you have not been political about this from day one. You’ve said from the beginning, this has nothing to do with right and left, this is about Hollywood and making great movies and film and television in America, where it should be made. And when you say, people are surprised, that’s what your getting at. People are surprised that Jon Voight is the guy who’s saving Hollywood, but he is, because this is important to him. And when something’s important to Jon, he does everything he can to have an impact on that … he’s done everything he can to make it nonpartisan and bipartisan and make it about jobs and people and content.
Voight: Well you see I know all these people, we’ve done so many films, we know what it takes. And these people are really the best in the world and throughout Hollywood. They’re top of the line. And when I see them suffer, boy, I’ve got to do something.
You’re obviously a major supporter of President Trump and there’s at least one time on social media that I’m aware of where you framed the struggle between right and left ideologist as a battle between good and evil. What has it been like working on a bipartisan basis on this idea?
Paul: Nobody talked about their politics, that’s what’s great about it. Did anyone talk about their politics on that call just then? They were all Americans who love America and love the entertainment business. And I couldn’t tell you who was a Republican and who was a Democrat.
Voight: There are times when you speak, you have to speak for the truth that you understand. There’s times when you have to stand up. I’m a big supporter of Israel and I’m very upset when I see people attacking Zionism, I know what that means, I know that kind of antisemitism, but in this area, we’re just folks, we have so much in common, everybody in this industry has a lot in common. We all fell in love with this industry, different parts of the industry, we got into them and there’s a romance to it, too. So we’re on the same page all the time.
You have bipartisan support for the federal tax credit idea, with politicians from states with a lot of production leading the charge. What is your argument for convincing politicians from states where production isn’t as prevalent?
Karol: I think, first of all, this impacts every state, even if there’s not production in the state. You heard people talk about it today, it’s truckers, it’s hotel chains, it’s small businesses. A company based in Arkansas, restaurants in Georgia and Oklahoma and Texas. So that’s the first thing, this really does bleed over into all states.
Second of all, I would echo what Sean Astin and Laura Friedman said on the call, there are other industries that get incentives that don’t touch all states, whether it’s farming or semiconductors or alternative energy, whatever it is. There’s 26 states that have incentives and there’s tons of states that don’t have an incentive that could benefit from a federal incentive. In addition to that, you have to consider the possibility that states that don’t have an incentive could have production coming in… maybe this will encourage additional states to add incentives to bring filming to their area. Maybe not as robust as Georgia, but something. So maybe this is an opportunity to increase the reach of filming in the United States.
Voight: I’ve filmed in so many states — Louisville, Kentucky, North Carolina. When we moved into those states with the movies we were making, boy it really changed the atmosphere in those town and gave a boost to those towns. And that’s going to happen all over the country.
Can you summarize Trump’s feelings overall about Hollywood today?
Paul: As I think we’ve said, he has a love for the entertainment business. He’s been part of the entertainment business and he’s had success in the entertainment business. And he thinks it’s an important part of America, actually, film and television. In some sense, it’s not really hard to convince him because he cares about the business. Once we gave him all of the facts, as Jon said, he’s pretty quick, he comes to it, you’ve got to make changes, you saw it in this post, this industry is dying, we’ve got to make it bigger and better than ever before. Everything he says, he means.
Karol: More than any other President I think he understands the importance of media and the influence it can have.
At a tough time in Hollywood, the entertainment business is preparing for another potentially earth-shaking event, which is the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger. What is your position on that merger and have you talked to David Ellison about it?
Paul: I’d rather not get into all that stuff right now, not starting to get into positions that could come back and bother everybody.
Karol: That said, we have worked with David Ellison and Paramount, they’ve been involved and incredibly helpful.
Have you spoken to Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone, who are the two other “special ambassadors” to Hollywood, about the federal film and TV tax credit and will they be getting involved?
Voight: They’ve been very busy, both of those guys actually have been extremely busy.
Paul: Sly’s been doing his TV show, but Sly’s been very involved and he signed our letter.
Voight: And Mel’s been doing his Resurrection [his sequel to The Passion of the Christ] out of the country, so he’s been very busy.
Paul: Not that Jon’s not been busy.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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